Vladimir Bibikhin as a Philosopher of Technology

Abstract

The article examines the extent to which Vladimir Bibikhin can be regarded as a philosopher of technology. Although Bibikhin identifies the proliferation of technological civilization as a central phenomenon of contemporary society, the issue of technology is explicitly addressed in the title of only one of his articles, namely “Philosophy and Technology”. A contextual analysis of this paper through Heidegger's philosophy of technology reveals that Bibikhin's expansion of the concept of technology represents a coherent continuation of Heideggerian thought. Bibikhin reframes the “problem of technology” as a specific mode of thinking. He criticizes not scientific and technical reasoning itself, but rather what he terms “robbery”, a mindset that extracts knowledge from its original context. In “Philosophy and Technology”, Bibikhin draws on the experiences of Leonardo da Vinci, criticizes the “choice of Europe”, and explores the potential for an “alternative solution”. His subsequent work, “The New Renaissance”, suggests that an alternative trajectory for the development of European civilization would be able to emerge if it had adhered to the principle of “recognizing the knowable as one's own”, as articulated by Leonardo. In his quest for “another beginning”, Bibikhin looks to Russia and articulates a desirable relationship with the science in “The Woods”. The analysis demonstrates that these various strategies are unified by the concept of amechania, which emerges as Bibikhin's technique. The concluding section discusses how Bibikhin's technique might be realized in a post-Bibikhin context without becoming a form of robbery itself.